March 14th, 2010
Listening is respect. I have often wondered why we have classes and awards for speaking skills but none for listening skills.
Speaking and listening are two sides of the same coin. Listening, in general, and particularly when communicating with children is neglected as speaking takes precedence. I know of schools that conduct lessons in communication skills that comprise completely on developing speaking skills (reflecting a common perception communication = speaking).
UN Convention on Children’s Rights lists listening as a part of the Child’s Right to Participate. By that logic, not listening to children is a violation of their rights. Since children communicate in a more than a hundred languages (Loris Malaguzzi), adults must learn to listen to these hundred languages.
Take a Moment to Listen
Take a moment to listen
To what your children are trying to say;
Listen today, whatever you do
Or they won’t be there to listen to you.
Listen to their problems. Listen for their needs,
Praise their smallest triumphs, praise their smallest deeds;
Tolerate their chatter, amplify their laughter.
Find out what’s the matter; find out what they’re after.
But tell them that you love them, every single night;
And though you scold them, be sure you hold them;
Tell them “Everything’s all right; tomorrow’s looking bright.”
Take a moment to listen today.
To what your children are trying to say;
Listen today, whatever you do.
And they will come back to listen to you!!
By Dr. Denis Waitley
Tags: children speaking, communication, developing speaking skills, hundred languages, learning, listening, listening skills, listening to children, Loris Malaguzzi, mother and child, mother listening, neglected skill, Skill, speaking, United Nations
Posted in Education, Reggio Emilia | 1 Comment »
May 28th, 2009
This poem by the founder of the Reggio-Emilia approach beautifully conveys the important roles imagination and discovery play in early childhood learning. Much of Reggio-Emilia philosophy is based on protecting children from becoming subjected too early to institutionalized doctrines which often make learning a chore rather than an extension of natural curiosity.
The child is made of one hundred.
The child has
a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred thoughts
a hundred ways of thinking
of playing, of speaking.
A hundred. Always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds
to discover
a hundred worlds
to invent
a hundred worlds
to dream.
The child has
a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
separate the head from the body.
They tell the child:
to think without hands
to do without head
to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy
to love and to marvel
only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child:
to discover the world already there
and of the hundred
they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
that work and play
reality and fantasy
science and imagination
sky and earth
reason and dream
are things
that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
-Loris Malaguzzi, Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach
In April of this year, I had the privilege of observing little children express themselves in these hundred languages, with the help of their teachers, the pedagogistas and the atelieristas in Reggio Emilia itself. You may want to visit the Reggio exhibitions when they pass by your city/country to get a peek into the work they do.
Tags: Child, Children, languages, Loris Malaguzzi, Reggio Emilia, Reggio-Emilia approach, Reggio-Emilia philosophy, The Hundred Languages of Children
Posted in Reggio Emilia | 1 Comment »
April 30th, 2009
Children, right from infants, need to explore and play with different materials in a safe environment. These could be seemingly safe materials like stuffed toys or seemingly unsafe ones like soft moulding wires. In today’s borderless world of contamination and cross-contamination, no material is completely “safe”. Yet adults, who are entrusted with the supervision and safety of infants, work with the illusion that restricting their childs interaction to just a few supposedly safe materials, makes them safe. It is easier for us to manage the environment so that our lapses and neglects do not jeopardise their safety. In our enthusiasm to make the environment safe, we forget that the elimination of certain materials from children’s environment makes learning very one dimensional and caters to development of some senses more than others.
In North America, the safety of kids sometimes borders on paranoia. The litigation culture prevalent there makes them rely so much on one kind of research that supports stringent control over materials, conveniently ignoring the other body of research which supports the contrary. In Canada, my infant son was not allowed to play with little cars by his daycare provider as there was the risk that the wheels might come off and may be swallowed by him or other infants around him. Whereas in Reggio, I witnessed the spectacular engagement of an infant with a metal object, something that would have horrified my son’s Canadian caregiver. The learning and the communication of the learning that emerged from such interaction was a visual delight for me as a mother and an educationist.
This is not to say that infants should be allowed to interact with sharp knifes and rat poison! But we need to broaden our choice of materials for kids, especially the very young ones, to interact with and learn from. Our fears as parents and care providers should not interfere with their sensorial development. Every material that has any educational value has its potential strengths and risks. It is more about vigilant supervision and common sense than about a false culture of safe, sterile environment. Somehow, the preschools in North America seem colourful but dull to the senses after Reggio where aesthetic repackaging and layouts of discards like orange peels gave them a new identity and potential purpose as a multi-sensorial, learning material.
Tags: care providers, Children, communication, contamination, Education, educational, educationist, explore, infants, learning, mother, parents, Reggio, safe, safety, sensory, supervision, toys
Posted in Reggio Emilia | No Comments »
April 28th, 2009
Education is a right of the child and a responsibility of the community/society. Such a simple statement with profound implications echoed all along my stay in Reggio Emilia. If you consider education as means of fulfilling some needs, that implies that there is a lack of something that education will make complete. But if you consider it as a right, then you see its full potential and strength.
Education is a social activity and schools are public spaces which have nothing to do with ease of physical access to public at large but with social visibility and transparency. Children come from “society” into the school and after school go back into “society”. The schools needs to be a bridge, and not a disconnect between the two “societies” so as to facilitate the process of learning and self-actualisation. Jerome Bruner (Noted Educational Psychologist and author of “The Process of Education”; “Towards a Theory of Instruction” & “The Culture of Education”) put it well when he said, “…..knowing where you are, where you find yourself, helps you to develop your sense of personal identity, your uniqueness, as well as your place in the world.” Schools well rooted in their societal ground, can develop strong learning for all protagonists in the school – children, parents and teachers.
A school is a place of dialogue, a dialogue between children and adults, a dialogue among adults, a dialogue between diversity, a dialogue between verbal and visual, a dialogue between the society and school. Yet so easily is it reduced to a monologue…..from the adults, from the education boards.
Children make learning a social activity, communication and collaboration comes naturally to them. In words of Carla Rinaldi, President of Reggio Children, “Childhood is an interpretation, a cultural construction”. So why is there very little dialogue between the school and the society? Why does society treat the school as a service provider rather than an extension of the society itself? And why does schools curriculum fail to reflect its social/cultural ethos?
Tags: Carla Rinaldi, Children, dialogue, Education, Educational Psychologist and author, Jerome Bruner, learning, Reggio Children, Reggio Emilia, schools, self-actualisation
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April 23rd, 2009
On the first day of his existence, my son had to undergo a battery of listening tests to check his hearing. Most of us come into the world ready to listen, not speak for a reason. But all my student and adult life, I have been attending classes/workshops which help improve speaking skills, but none that helped me develop on the natural trait of listening. During our lives, speaking becomes so important that we stop listening. We hear, yes, but stop listening. And we try to make our kids that way too.
Even when we listen, it is to the verbal language and not the visual language. The ear takes dominance and sometimes complete control over this process of listening and we become deaf to the other “Hundred Languages” that we have to communicate with. These other kinds of listening have more to do with sensitivity and acknowledgement. Some take time; some are filled with pauses and silences of constructive meaning, a very personal meaning. In education, the pedagogy of listening is the pedagogy of reciprocity. It is an affirmation of the speaker/object and learner. It is an acknowledgement of “I exist” and “I am unique”. Yet how many of us listen, to ourselves and animate and inanimate things around us? How many of us parents and educators, recognise and develop it in our children?
Tags: Education, hearing, languages, listening, Reggio Emillia, speaking, verbal language, visual language
Posted in Reggio Emilia | 1 Comment »
